Enlightning
by Max3
Summary: Arthur is flying around on Krikit, and generally enjoying(?) himself
1. Flight

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: This is an experiment, to see if I could write such a story. Evidently I can. And, in my own (humble) opinion, this is pretty good. If you also think that this is pretty good, please tell me. For those of you who didn't understand, that means reviews. If I get enough good reviews, I'll write more. For now, enjoy!

Arthur Dent was cruising along in the stratosphere of Krikit when he received the shock of his life. Quite literally.

He was flying along with a southeastern warm front, when he ran smack into a cold front coming from the opposite direction. That's right, northwest. Aside from the tender bruise on his forehead, this collision had other results. 

As many people may know, this is a recipe for a storm. Simply pour the contents of one packet into the stratosphere, add one-tablespoon cold front, and two tablespoons warm front. Stir with a very large spoon.

So this storm was made. Being a storm, it was in a bad mood. Now let me tell you, being in a bad mood five miles above the planet isn't too pleasant. Simply because, there is nobody to lash out at. But this storm was lucky. Because right in the middle of itself, was Arthur Dent, who was trying to rub his bruised forehead with one hand, clutch a well-worn travel bag in the other hand, and fly at the same time. Amazingly, he succeeded. 

The storm, who we will henceforth relate to as Bob, was really angry, and lashed out at Arthur Dent, sending 12 million volts of electricity through his fragile body.

Arthur never knew what hit him. Well, actually he found out later, when a friendly sparrow told him. But for now we can say that he didn't know what hit him.

Anyway, Arthur ended up lying on the ground without any memory of arriving there. He saw Bob up in the sky, just as Bob was kind enough to zap a nearby tree. Arthur decided that he had been struck by lightning. A friendly sparrow flying by was kind enough to confirm this for him. After inquiring briefly about his health, the sparrow flew on to do whatever sparrows do during a storm.

Having just being told that he was struck by lightning struck Arthur as odd at first, but he didn't know why. He just knew that it should strike him as odd. So it did.

Just then, Bob started raining. Arthur pulled himself to his feet, and staggered over to a nearby field seeking shelter. The field offered no protection whatsoever from the rain. Arthur sat down in the middle of the field, reached into his bag and pulled out a battered and worn copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The greatest book of all time. Better than Harry Potter, more informative than the Galactic Encyclo… but we won't go into that.

Arthur pulled out the copy given to him by Ford Prefect on prehistoric Earth, and began reading about being struck by lightning.

The Guide had, surprisingly, a lot to say about being struck by lightning.

_Being struck by lightning, _the Guide says_, is a very popular, albeit dangerous sport. But, the experts say, the danger is what's so appealing. That and the feeling of having several millions of volts of electricity coursing through your body._

There are many alterations that can be done to the body in order to produce the best shocks. The most popular is the coating of one's bones in a conductive, metallic alloy. Thus making oneself more conductive without the restriction of movement.

Another less popular method is to coat the outer layer of skin in an alloy. However, this treatment has the nasty side effect of being unable to move.

Strightling, as the professionals call it, is such a popular sport, that it has it's own Olympics.

Once a year, billions of fans converge on the planet Lightogrus to watch the professional strightlers, who have come from all over the galaxy to compete in the Strghtling Olympics.

The fact remains, that aside from the yearly Olympics, Lightogrus offers no interest whatsoever. It has no exports, no products, and virtually no population. In fact, the only people that live there are the vendors from the Olympics that couldn't afford a ride home. This is because Lightogrus is a barren world, swept by thousands of storms daily. That is why the Strightling Olympics are held there.

The contestants all climb a mountain peak 5 miles high, and stand there awaiting there bolt. The contestant with the highest score, which is composed by calculating the of the size of the lightning strike, in volts, and number of strikes of lightning, moves up to the next round. When all other players are dead, the only one left, still alive is the winner.

Despite a ninety-percent casualty rate, Strightling is still a very popular sport. For those of you who wish to compete in the Strightling Olympics, simply send a sub-etha fax to the Game Officials headquarters on Playnellius Beta. The fax should include a doctor's certificate saying that the contestant is clinically insane. This is to prevent future lawsuits. 

Arthur finished reading all this just as Bob took his wrath, and himself, elsewhere. Arthur was so tired from his experiences that he decided to take a little nap and think about taking up a new hobby. The idea of being the champion strightler was enchanting.

Arthur put the Guide back in his bag, and took out a very worn looking towel. He folded the towel and put it under his head as he lay down in the middle of a field. In seconds he was sound asleep and keeping up a loud buzz saw like snore to keep away the vultures.

A/N: You have just finished reading my first Hitchhiker's story. If you liked it, please Review, and then recommend this story to all of your friends. If you didn't like it, I don't want to hear about it. On second thoughts, if you didn't like it, tell me what was wrong, but NICELY! 


	2. Awakening

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

Arthur awoke, and instantly regretted it. For one thing, the sun was out, and was shining much too brightly. For another, his left leg had fallen asleep, and there was something wrong with his right leg. He felt a slight sharp pain that repeated itself over and over again. He looked down and saw a vulture pecking at him. With a very colorful stream of oaths in about three dozen languages, Arthur heaved himself to his feet and shooed the vulture, and a dozen or so of its friends, away.

One might wonder at this point where Arthur, who has seemed to us to be such a dim-witted fellow, has learned to speak three dozen languages. And the fact is, he hasn't. That stream of profanity is the extent of Arthur's foreign linguistic skills. And these were picked up in spaceports on countless worlds. Truth be told, Arthur knew several more oaths, in several more languages, but the human vocal cords are simply incapable of pronouncing them.

So despite his will to the contrary, Arthur was awake. After stamping around to get the blood flowing through his left leg, and after applying his trusty towel as a compress to stop the blood from flowing in his right leg, Arthur decided that now would be a good time to be hungry. As if on cue, his stomach let loose with a loud growl, scaring away the few remaining vultures who were waiting for Arthur to drop dead.

Arthur pawed through his travel bag, looking for something to eat. Since it was quite dark in the bag, Arthur decided to use his nose. He stuck his face in the opening of the bag and took a hearty whiff. This proved a mistake, since it almost knocked him dead. Which would have been good for the vultures.

Arthur hastily pulled his face back, and took a few breaths of fresh air. He then continued searching his bag until he found the source of the odor. He pulled it out and stared at it. It was a barf bag from a Krikit Airline plane, still half full. Arthur tried to remember when was the last time he was on an airplane, by his best calculations, at least seven months ago. That means this barf bag was quite a senior citizen. Arthur carefully put it on the ground and buried it with respect.

He was just finishing up the eulogy when his stomach reminded him who was boss. Arthur reached into his bag and pulled out the first thing he touched, luckily, it was a slice of jerky with some patches on it that still weren't green yet. He ate these ravenously. He then stared at a nearby tree with some withered fruit lying on the ground and tried to decide just how hungry he was. Evidently not hungry enough.

He turned away in revulsion, and saw a grove of fruit trees with fruit still on the trees. Arthur ran towards these as fast as was possible at the time. Which wasn't to fast, considering how one leg went to sleep again and the other was turning a dark shade of purple under its compress. So Arthur was forced to stop and remove the compress before he could continue his mad dash for the fruit trees. But by then he'd forgotten where they were, so he sat down heavily and stared into middle distance.

It was then that he noticed that the sun wasn't shining too brightly anymore. Arthur looked up and saw that he was under a tree. And the tree had dark things hanging from the branches.

Arthur jumped to his feet, and started eating the dark things as fast as he could grab them. The fruit had a dark blue peel, and a bright pink inside. While he was munching these, he tried to figure out what they tasted like. He decided it was a cross between chocolate flavored custard and a dirty sock.

Finally sated, Arthur sat back against a tree trunk to relax. He dozed a little and had a very strange dream.

He dreamed that a giant monkey, no bigger than a pea was chasing him across a barren and lush landscape, while waving a four foot long thimble. Arthur ran franticly through arid jungles and lush deserts.

Finally, exhausted, Arthur reached a dead end. He was at the bottom of a long cliff. He cautiously approached the edge and looked down. It was very deep. There would be no escape that way. 

Arthur franticly searched around him for a weapon of some kind. At last his eyes fell upon an old tree branch, it would be perfect. But first, he had to recover his eyes and put them back in his head.

With his eyes back where they belong, Arthur picked up the branch and started waving around in a threatening way. The monkey, seeing this hesitated. That branch Arthur was holding looked dangerous.

That instant of hesitation gave Arthur enough time. Giving the branch a few more swishes through the air, he then whacked it very hard on a nearby stone. The branch cracked in half.

When nothing happened at first, Arthur started to panic. But then, in an immense black wave, millions of termites swarmed out of the broken tree branch. Arthur heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.

The monkey saw the termites, his eyes grew wide, and he froze there. Then, the monkey threw away his thimble, crouched down and began to eat the termites.

With a victorious grin, Arthur started walking away when he suddenly stopped. He turned around, and walked back to the monkey. He crouched down next to him and began to eat termites. And thus, two enemies looked past their differences on the field of battle and shared a termite nest.

With a cry Arthur awoke. This time he felt more refreshed but confused about the dream. He got up, stretched, gathered his belongings, and set of in search of a sub-etha fax machine.

You have just finished reading Chapter 2. If you liked it, please Review, and then recommend this story to all of your friends. If you didn't like it, I don't want to hear about it. Actually, if you didn't like it… nah, never mind. No wait! If you didn't like it tell me what was wrong, but NICELY! 


	3. The Search

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: I'm sorry about the delay, apparently there is more to life than writing stories.

Arthur trudged along across the Krikitian landscape. Our intrepid hero paused as he reached the top of a small rise. He put his hand over his eyes to ward off the setting sun as he scanned the countryside for signs of a sub-etha fax machine.

It was then that he saw it. A great big sign, 12 feet tall. It was standing at the bottom of the hill. Written across its blue face in bright pink letters were the words, 'Sub-etha fax machine 7 miles' and below that a pink arrow pointing to the left.

Arthur's heart gave a great leap in his chest. It was such a great leap that it almost strangled him.

Recovering his breath, Arthur started down the hill in the direction of the sign. As he approached, he saw a small path leading from the sign and off to the right. Arthur stopped. He was completely befuddled. The sign pointed left, and yet the path went right. He sat down to ponder it, and maybe eat something.

He sat down with his back to the signpost, and started catching crickets in the grass. When he had enough, Arthur reached into his seemingly bottomless travel-bag and pulled out a frying pan. He lit a small fire and fried the crickets in some Greek olive oil. The very last bottle in the universe. As the bottle was almost empty, Arthur made a note to stop by a filming set for Star Trek and replicate some more olive oil.

As he was pinning the note to the breast pocket of his dressing gown, Arthur saw a figure approaching from the left.

As the figure drew nearer, Arthur saw that it was another hitchhiker like himself. Arthur got up to meat him. Arthur got up to meet him.

The figure stopped when he came to Arthur. Arthur put his hand out and said, "Hi, my name is Arthur Dent and this is my towel." When he said this last, he took his towel out and proffered a filthy corner to the stranger. (Who wasn't looking like a figure anymore now that he was up close. In fact, he looked like one of those Egyptian gods, with the body of a human and the head of a slug. As Arthur looked more intently, he realized that the head didn't just look like a slug, the head was a slug.)

Slughead shook Arthur's hand and then gingerly shook Arthur's towel. He then said, "Pleased to meet you Arthurdent. My name isn't Slughead. It's Rex, and this is my towel." And offered Arthur a corner of a clean looking dark gray towel. As Arthur shook it however, he discovered that the towel was quite grungy. He than wiped his hand on his own towel. The patches of fungus immediately killed off whatever was on his hand from Rex's towel.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a remarkable chapter on greetings. I will bring you a small quote.

_When two beings come into contact for the very first time, it is necessary to complete the correct greeting ritual. This ritual varies from culture to culture._

In most bipedal cultures, the ritual consists of both participants clasping the other's right hand, and then shaking them, the hands not the other participant, up and down, while introducing themselves.

On Viltvodle VI, the Jatravartids have a complex and intricate version of this. Each Jatravartid clasps the other's hand in the opposite of it's own. The right-right clasps the right-right. The middle-right clasps the middle-right. The left-right clasps the left-right. The upper-middle-right clasps the upper-middle-right and so on for their fifty pairs of arms in a ritual that can last for up to five minutes.

One quad-pedal culture, the Podefelians of Gantraza V have feet on the end of their arms instead of hands. These beings complete the greeting ritual by stepping on each other's right foot with their own. This can cause a lot of confusion on crowded buses.

Another bipedal culture that differs from the others is the Redigitians of Bombardelia. While they clasp hands, they weave each of the twenty six fingers on their right hand around the other's fingers. It is well known that the Redigitians make the galaxy's best ointment for finger sprains.

When two hitchhikers meet, they follow the ritual for most bipedal cultures, assuming they are bipedal, clasp right hands while introducing themselves, and then introduce their towels. This is done by offering the corner of one's towel and saying, 'this is my towel'. The other hitchhiker then shakes the corner, and introduces his/her/its towel.

Once the greeting ritual is complete, it is customary to start a conversation. This may be done, in the case of hitchhikers, by discussing where they are, the other's towel and such.

For a more detailed report on conversations, please view Conversations _on page_ 2,367,214.

Having completed the greeting ritual, Arthur decided to ask Rex about his towel.

"Rex, how is it that your towel is so clean, yet feels grungy?"

"Oh, it really isn't clean. It's just that a gray towel disguises the stains." Rex said as he eyed Arthur's very dirty looking yellow towel. Arthur looked at it himself. It was a very dirty towel, and yet he felt strongly attached to it. It was terry cloth and quite soft, even after so much use. If you looked at it hard enough, you could make out the thin pink lines that ran across it, as well as the inscription in the corner, 'Boston Ritz Carlton'. He wasn't quite sure where he got the towel. He'd never been to Boston before. He wasn't really sure where it is. Was. Where it was.

Rex broke into Arthur's musings with a crash that was strangely audible. "If your looking for a sub-etha fax machine, it's not there." He said, and pointed to the left. He then walked up to the sign and gave it a hard push.

Before Arthur's amazed eyes, the sign rotated around until the arrow was pointing to the right, down the path. "Shall we?" Rex asked, and started walking down the path.

Arthur quickly gathered up his stuff, and followed Rex. And so they continued down the path in an uncomfortable silence, until Rex suddenly came down with a very bad case of dead.

You have just finished reading chapter 3. I know I left a cliffhanger that's the point. The repeated sentence isn't a mistake. I did that on purpose, look carefully and you'll see why. If you enjoyed the story, please recommend it to all of your friends, if you don't have any friends, recommend it to me. I know of a very lonely stone who is looking for a friend. If you didn't enjoy my story, tough.

Chapter 4 might be a little late. Like I said, there is more to life than writing stories.


	4. The Search Ends?

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

It happened quite suddenly, and caught both Arthur and Rex by surprise. They were three miles down the path, when they saw the sea. Arthur was very happy to see the sea. This is because when he was a boy, all of his fondest memories are of the sea. That is because Arthur enjoyed the seaside very much. In fact, he was almost always at the seaside. Come to think of it, the only time he wasn't at the seaside was when he was somewhere else. 

Well anyway, the path took them by the sea. Arthur was enjoying the fresh salty breeze when he heard a surprised gurgle coming from behind him.

Now, ordinarily Arthur wouldn't offer assistance, he has been very against offering assistance ever since that day in the park when a man offered Arthur help in catching the new owner of a very nice wallet with a lot of cash in it that used to be Arthur's. Arthur foolishly accepted help, and ended up going home without wallet and shoes.

But now, on the coast of some Krikitian sea, Arthur heard the surprise gurgle, and turned around. He didn't turn around to offer assistance, he just had never heard a surprised gurgle before. He wanted to see what could make such a sound, and how it can be made.

Arthur turned around, and saw nothing of what he was expecting. He was expecting a (rather unpleasant) view of Rex and the source of the gurgle. It never occurred to him that Rex could be the source of the gurgle.

Rex was the source of the gurgle.

Arthur watched in fascination as the same salty breeze that he himself was enjoying, brought upon the early demise of Rex.

The salt content of the breeze ended it pretty quickly. As it was happening, Arthur saw the look on Rex's face suddenly become one of understanding. Then Rex looked at Arthur with such hate that Arthur took a step back.

I will spare you the grisly details, I don't feel like upping the rating. Suffice to say that in a matter of moments all that was left was a pile of clothes and a gray towel.

Arthur stared at this open mouthed for a few moments. Until he heard a fluttering sound. He looked up, and saw a scrap of paper wafting towards him on the breeze. It landed on the towel.

Now that he had something new to stare at, Arthur stared at the scrap of paper for a while. He then stooped, picked it up and looked at it in his hand. It was a note, and he supposed it was addressed to him. The words _'Dear Arthur Dent' _at the top confirmed his suspicion. Arthur read the rest of the note. It said:

__

'Dear Arthur Dent

I hate you.

Love Agrajag'

Arthur puzzled over this as he continued on down the path. He was sure that he had heard that name before, Agrajag. Hmm. He also seemed to remember having to remember something very important. He just couldn't remember what. Well, he thought, it isn't really that important.

His meager musings were cut short by the sudden appearance of a sub-etha fax machine.

The machine didn't really appear, Arthur simply saw it for the first time around a bend in the path. And it looked like it had appeared out of nowhere.

Arthur walked up to it.

As he approached, he saw a sign explicitly explaining how to work the machine, and what to do.

'First take a piece of dried mulched tree from the stack,' Arthur read. He assumed that the sign meant the stack of paper on the side. He took a piece of paper.

He then followed the rest of the instructions, I won't bore you with them.

Having written his message on a piece of dried tree mulch using a graphite extract covered in wood, he sent his request to the Game Officials headquarters on Playnellius Beta. In it he mentioned a brief history of current events surrounding him.

'One Thursday afternoon my planet got blown up. I then spent an unknown amount of time wandering around the Galaxy. When I'd had enough of that, I then wandered around in time for a while. I spent 5 years on my planet approximately 2 million years before it got blown up. I then helped defeat the galaxy's worst menace, and brought peace to a civilization that has known only war for 5 of their years, and 5 million of ours. Then one day I got struck by lightning, and I would now like to compete in the strightling olympics. Please advise.'

Arthur sent the message, and waited for a reply.

Arthur is still waiting.

Arthur starts to twiddle his thumbs.

Arthur starts to stamp his foot out of impatience.

Arthur starts to pace back and forth in front of the sub-etha fax machine.

Arthur stops pacing and looks at the machine expectantly.

Arthur resumes pacing.

This continues for a while, but you are probably getting bored.

Arthur makes another meal of crickets. Seeing that his bottle of olive oil is almost empty, he makes a note to stop by a filming set for Star Trek and replicate some more olive oil.

As he pins the note to the pocket of his dressing gown, Arthur sees an identical note. He puzzles over this for a minute, and then looks at the sub-etha fax machine.

Still no reply.

Arthur puts his towel under his head, and falls asleep. I may have neglected to mention, but by now it's nighttime.

Arthur was startled awake. For a moment he doesn't remember where he was, what he was doing, and when lunch is.

Then the beeping repeats itself. Arthur gets up and walks over to the sub-etha fax machine. On it he notices a little red light that is blinking on and off. As he scrutinizes the light, he sees that it is attached to a button.

Arthur pushes the button.

He hears a whirring noise, and then a piece of dried tree mulch comes out of the machine. On it are words in a foreign language.

He attempts to read them anyway. To his surprise, the babble fish in his ear, translates the language as he speaks it.

'We are happy to inform you that you have been accepted to the Strightling Olympics. Please send us a doctor's certificate saying that you are clinically insane. Thank you for your cooperation.'

Arthur mulled this over. How could he get a doctor's certificate saying that he was clinically insane? He didn't _know _any doctors.

While thinking about being clinically insane, Arthur's thoughts turned towards his alien friends with whom he had shared some of his adventures. He suddenly wondered where they were and what they were doing. (And when was lunch).

At that very moment, on the other side of the galaxy, sitting in something that resembled a flying running shoe, sat the one-time president of the whole galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox the nothingth. And he was stone drunk.

A/N: You have just reading chapter 4. I sincerely hoped that you enjoyed it. I would be very grateful if you would write me a nice review. Please be sure to read chapter 5, which doesn't exist yet, but will hopefully be posted within a week.


	5. Insanity

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

Zaphod sat in the bridge of the Heart of Gold with his legs propped up against one of Eddy's consoles. With two of his hands, and one of his heads, he was busy sculpting a small brown figurine from a small brown greasy lump. It was in fact earwax. Zaphod was currently working on a Jatravartid and had already completed 37 pairs of arms. An assortment of twenty or so other figurines scattered throughout the bridge were a mute testimony to the amount of time Zaphod had on his hands, and the amount of earwax you can produce with four ears and two thick heads.

Zaphod would pause once in a while, and slug another glass of trans-galactic gargle blaster down one of his throats. He wasn't entirely sure how many he had had. By his own (blurry) count it was either seven or seventeen. Since he couldn't decide, he decided to have another and make it and even dozen.

With his third arm, and other head, Zaphod was reprogramming Eddy. Now, on the list of things you should never do, like argue with a man holding a gun, or give yourself a haircut with a chainsaw is the helpful hint to never reprogram your ship's computer while under the influence of some trans-galactic gargle blaster. No matter how many glasses you have had, seven, seventeen or twelve. But we'll get to that in a minute.

The Heart of Gold's other passenger, Trillian, was in her quarters watching reruns of 'Coronation Street'. On her head she was wearing a towel, on her face she was wearing avocado spread, from her shoulders to her knees she was wearing a fake satin dressing gown and on her feet were pink bunny slippers. It's important that you visualize this correctly.

So Trillian was sitting there, in her strange attire and watching 'Coronation Street' when the ship hiccuped.

This caught her completely by surprise. To add to her astonishment, the ship flip-flopped a little like a fish out of water. At this point, Trillian decided to storm her way to the bridge and yell at Zaphod, Eddy or both.

On the bridge, Zaphod faintly heard a smugly satisfied voice say, "Thank you for making a simple door very happy." This was followed by a very angry voice, "Oh shut up you maladjusted, over-intelligent piece of rusted machinery, before I turn you into scrap metal."

Zaphod turned around, and screamed out of sheer terror.

Remember what Trillian was wearing, now picture her standing there, with her hands resting defiantly on her fake-satin clad hips and her avocado smeared face in a scowl. Now pretend that you are drunk, with two heads, and are seeing _four _such apparitions. Now scream. In case you are wondering, that's exactly how Zaphod saw it.

In an effort to reduce the damage to the ocular sections of his brain, Zaphod somehow managed, with his three hands, to cover almost three eyes. So he saw a little more than one Trillian.

Trillian patiently waited for him to finish before she started yelling at him.

Zaphod didn't get most of it, but what he did get was something like this.

"How can you…with so much time on your hands no wonder…you were better off president at least then you were something… I'm sick and tired of…all you do is sit on your brain and…you are nothing but a low down, pathetic, earwax factory with three (*censored*) holes!"

As emphasis, she reached over and squashed the miniature Jatravartid, who had had 48 pairs of arms. Now he had none.

"I want you to stop playing with your earwax, get yourself sobered up, and fix Eddy! I'm going to change, when I come back, I want to be able to fly somewhere."

And with that she stormed off. As the last echoes of "It is a pleasure to open before you, and close behind you with the satisfaction of a job well done" reverberated in the almost empty bridge, Zaphod picked up his lump of Jatravartid and started all over again.

Eddy merely said, "Banana splits have a nutritional value of…"

As Trillian stomped back to her quarters she fumed. She was mad. Not mad in the psychotic sense, but mad in the angry sense. She'd been cooped up in this tiny ship with that two-headed freak for too long. She needed a note of sanity in her life. And that is when she started thinking of Ford. Not that he was sane, just that he could usually reign in Zaphod. She wondered what Ford was up to. She wondered if he had managed to get himself killed yet. She wondered when lunch would be.

Ford, was at that precise moment, running for his life.

He was on some obscure planet where the chief entertainment was either hanging around in a bar and drinking, or hanging around in a bar and killing people. Up until a few moments ago, Ford was happily sitting in a bar and drinking. The people around him seemed like the rough kind of type who would rather be involved in the other available form of entertainment. But he on the other hand was content to continue with what he was doing.

This changed suddenly when an argument came up. One of the thugs remarked that he could run twenty kilometers in ten minutes, and had in fact done so yesterday.

Another thug said that that was impossible, nobody could run that far in ten minutes. In fact, most people couldn't even run that far at all.

The first thug said that he could and that he did.

The second thug said this was impossible.

In an effort to end the argument, Ford said, "I can't run twenty kilometers to save my life."

Now this did end the argument, but not the way he planned. When he finished saying this, the two thugs looked at each other, nodded, grabbed Ford and left the bar seeking other entertainment.

They took him to a race course and said, "You're going to run twenty kilometers now, and if you don't, we'll kill ya."

Too late Ford realized that the whole argument was an act to find some more interesting entertainment. So Ford began running.

And that's where we picked him up, at around the nineteenth kilometer.

When Ford was finally done, he looked to where the two thugs had been standing, and saw the whole crowd from the bar. They applauded him, and then shot somebody who happened to be walking by.

Ford sighed as he tried to catch his breath, quite a difficult thing to do by the way. He suddenly wished that Zaphod were with him.

Meanwhile, on the Heart of Gold, Trillian had calmed down somewhat, put on a nice outfit and returned to the bridge to find Zaphod at his Jatravartid again, which now had 19 pairs of arms. She sighed, there was nothing to do really, just wait for it to pass. But in the meantime…

Turning to Eddy she said, "Take us to a nice vacation planet. I don't care where, just somewhere with nice beaches and a relaxed atmosphere."

Eddy responded with a cheery "Right away. Two banana splits coming right up!"

A/N: You have just finished reading chapter 5. Evidently it came sooner that I expected. I hope you enjoyed it, and some positive feedback in the form of reviews would be nice. It will be a while, and I mean it this time, before the next chapter comes up. When I say a while, I mean something around two weeks. I'm sorry. I know that you will all be very disappointed, but I'm not going to be home for the next week or so. Such is life.


	6. Endgame

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: Sorry about how long this took, but like I said, I wasn't home for a week. I'm sure you were all eagerly waiting for this post, and would like me to stop blabbering and get on with the story, so I will.

After some persuasion, Eddy started the Heart of Gold hiccuping across the galaxy. On board, Trillian sat strapped into a seat and gritting her teeth against the rough ride. She was glad that they were finally going somewhere, and hoped that they would get there soon. She no longer cared where they were going.

Zaphod sat next to her, and based on the stupid grin on his face, he was either enjoying the ride, or he was stoned, she decided it was probably the latter. She just wished that Eddy would stop singing, 5th century Mongolian opera was not exactly her speed.

On a planet not too far away, sat a lone figure in a dirty spaceport. The figure sat slouched over and appeared to be holding something in his hand. He was wearing a strange assortment of clothes, that looked as if he had picked them out of garbage bins on seven different worlds, and in fact, he had.

The hand, with the thing in it, slowly rose towards where the mouth would be. The hand rose above the mouth and stopped in front of the nose. With a click, a slender curved apparatus emerged from the object. With a contented sigh, Ford stuck the Pick-O-Matic in his right nostril and picked.

While he was in the middle of doing his left nostril, a staticy PA announcement came over the PA announcement device. It was in a foreign language, but the Babbel fish took care of that.

"To all passengers. Flight number KS*crackle*5^26 for *hiss* is leaving from gate 462. Please bring your…" the rest was lost in incomprehensible static. But that didn't bother Ford, he didn't care where he went, so long as it was interesting, and fortunately, most places were.

So Ford got up and approached gate 462.

The flight was boring, so Ford slept. As he landed at his unknown destination, by some freaky coincidence, a space ship resembling a running shoe slipped into a shaky orbit of that same planet.

On board that ship, a shaky Trillian got out of her chair, staggered over to one of Eddy's consoles, and gave it a serious whap. Eddy straightened their orbit immediately.

Trillian walked over to a video screen, turned it on and trained it on a random spot on the planet below them. It turns out that this spot wasn't so random after all. She increased the magnification, looked at it, rubbed her eyes and looked again. Her jaw dropped, and she tried to speak, but could only make gurgling noises due to the fact that her lower jaw had fallen off.

Zaphod looked at her scrambling across the floor picking up her teeth, and didn't comment. He wanted to savor this rare moment of silence from her. And so consequentially, he didn't see what surprised her so.

On the face of Lightogrus, which was the planet that Ford was on, and the planet that Trillian, Eddy and Zaphod were orbiting, Ford exited the spaceport, and looked off into the distance. Having looked at the same spot that Trillian had, he had pretty much the same reaction, but he was able to keep his jaw where it belonged.

The reason for their reactions was halfway up the slope of a very tall mountain.

Halfway up a very tall mountain, Marvin groaned his squeaky gears up the cliff face.

With over exaggerated slowness, Marvin lifted his left leg, and with the sound of tortured gears, placed it a little higher up the cliff face. He then moved his groaning right arm over to a better handhold.

While he was accomplishing this easy task with surprising difficulty, he kept complaining about what he was doing here.

"Here I am, on a miserable storm swept planet in one of the unattractive areas of the galaxy, climbing a stupid mountain. You don't send the most intelligent being in the universe to climb a cliff. Brain the size of the planet I'm on and here I am, climbing a g-d forsaken mountain…"

And here his ramblings stopped. Because it was at this point that he remembered _why_ he was climbing the mountain. He was trying to commit suicide. All in all a great accomplishment for a robot, to want to terminate it's own existence.

This was his last chance. He had tried everything. From throwing himself in front of a speeding space ship, to trying to drown himself in the acidic seas of Megakillerzone IV.

'Now,' he thought, 'here on the tallest mountain of Lightogrus, my steel body would surely absorb enough lightning bolts to put an end to my very physical being.' And that thought gave him the most joy he had ever known for as long as he could remember. And he could remember a long time, being several times older that the Universe itself.

As he reached the top, he was somewhat chagrined to discover that a lot of people were there, and indeed watching him. This soon turned to despair when they started cheering. 'But,' he thought, 'the more people to see me go the better. This way at least I'll have a good eulogy.'

He lifted his hands to the sky, and the spectators hushed instantly. Marvin puzzled over this.

He lowered his hands, and they made noise, this time booing.

He raised his hands, silence.

He lowered his hands, noise.

He got tired of the game. He raised his hands, silence.

He left his hands there.

He waited.

Then, a storm started brewing off to the left. He watched it as it gained strength, and came closer. The storm was right overhead.

Then the first of many lightening bolts stuck Marvin's steel body. As twelve million (12,000,000) volts of electricity sent themselves on a whirlwind tour of Marvin, his built in circuit breaker tripped, and shut him down. A smile was frozen on his face. He thought that he had died.

Another bolt of lightning hit, and then another and another.

By the time the storm had worn itself out, two thousand seven hundred and eighty three (2,783) lightning bolts had hit him.

Marvin's first conscious moment after being struck was of someone pinning a medal to his chest. (The physical contact had automatically reset his breaker.)

Evidently, he had won the Strightling Olympics, and set a new record to boot. His complete and utter despair was total. He never had felt more miserable, and thought he would never feel more miserable ever again.

In the very next instant he was proven wrong. His emotional state hit such a low that it triggered previously stable seismic areas and started an earthquake.

The source of such misery had just crested the top of the mountain. It was wearing a stupid grin on its face, a very disheveled dressing gown on its body, and carried a very well worn travel bag under one arm. In the other hand, it was proudly waving what looked like some kind of doctor's certificate.

THE END

A/N: You have just finished reading the sixth (and final) chapter of 'Enlightening'. I hope that you all enjoyed it.

I would like to thank myself for writing this, it has been such a pleasure

I would also like to thank my wonderful computer that let me type all this up, without crashing once!

Lastly I would like to thank all of my faithful readers who have remained with me this far, and even sent in reviews.

Right now I have an idea for another Guide story, but it might take a while for the idea to become a story.

Hope to hear from you soon! (in the form of reviews.)

TTFN!


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